Bottlenecking

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
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Is it wise to upgrade my video card any longer, or should I stay with this until I can get PCI-e?

2600mhz P4 Northwood
1GB PC2700 RAM
XFX AGP 6600GT (565/1220)
ASUStek P4SD-VX

Would anything higher than a 6600GT be worth the upgrade? Or should I wait until later when I can upgrade my CPU/RAM/Motherboard?

Norm
 

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
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OK, I thought so. As for a motherboard, is a 939 socket still going to last for a few more years? It's almost Black Friday, and I'm thinking of getting a 939 PCI-E board when its cheap and later on add a CPU and Video Card. Or are there plans for a new AMD socket next year?

Norm
 

xtknight

Elite Member
Oct 15, 2004
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It totally depends on what games you play. There are plenty of cases where a 7800GTX could be used by a P4 2.6GHz just fine. However you should upgrade to PCI-E first, because the AGP may bottleneck (depends).
 

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
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Well, I'm on a 478 socket, and I don't think I'll upgrade to another 478 mobo with PCI-e. How long will the 939 still be used?

Norm
 

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
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www.techbuyersguru.com
I went from a Radeon 9800 Pro to an x800xt pe on a Northwood 3.0 with 1GB pc3200, and I got twice the framerates. So you definitely have room to improve, but the question is whether you want to buy a new system soon (~6-9 months). If so, save your money.
 

JRW

Senior member
Jun 29, 2005
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Not sure if this helps but I recently upgraded from a P4 2.8C@3.3ghz / 6800GT to a AMD X2 4800+ / 7800 GTX and gaming performance has *vastly* improved, For example Call of Duty 2 ran pretty crappy on the P4 system yet on the AMD it runs much,much better, in fact even when I dropped it to 640x480 / No AA on the P4 it still runs noticably smoother on the amd system running @ 1280x800 w/ 4X AA / 8X AF. Im not sure which is more of a factor here , CPU or Videocard but im guessing its a combination of both.
 

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
3,822
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I think for you, the 7800GTX is almost 2-3x the performance even with the 2.8. Add in the 4800, you probably improved a lot.

Now if I only had the money for that kind of spending.. :(

Norm
 

Polish3d

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2005
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Originally posted by: Rage187
M2 2nd finacial quarter, 1st quarter of the year.

I think there is an article on the homepage showing that M2 is delayed until after Ceebit and closer to June